Interest in Sex Trafficking

I think that the thing that first got me started on sex trafficking was when I was in Paris 3 summers ago. My dad, stepmom, best friend and I went on a few week vacation to europe and visited some of my dad's friends in the process. Katie and I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower so my dad called up one of his good friends who lived in Paris and arranged for us to meet up with him. We ate dinner in the Eiffel Tower and walked around outside a little while and eventually it was too late to take the subway back to where the friends' house was. We decided to catch a cab. My dad always told me of this park in Paris where he always went everytime he was there. He asked the cab to drive by it so that I could see it, even though it was extremely dark outside. As we were driving down this street, which had huge trees hanging over either sides and bushes that were about 15 feet back off of the sidewalk, I started to notice something. There were people in the bushes moving. It took me a while, but the park was huge and I quickly figured out that the people in the bushes were prostitutes and the people who were on the curbs were customers. My dad explained that he had never been at the park at night and had no intention to take me to see prostitution up close and personal. I asked the taxi driver to pull over. He told me that there was not enough room to pick up a girl. I told him that I didnt want to pick up a girl, but to rather just give her some money and have a conversation. As we slowed down, near this group of girls, I was astonished. They were tiny and they looked to be about 15. At the time i was about the same age. I got out of the car and walked up to them with about 30 euros. It was my own money and i figured better to give it to someone who needed it and couldn't find some without doing something bad. I told the girls to split it amoungst themselves for something that they needed that wasn't drugs. One of the girls spoke english, so she translated for the rest and smiled. They spoke simple french to me, which I understood at the time. They asked my name and how old I was and why I was there etc. Eventually after about 10 minutes, my dad calls my name from a few feet away. I turn around and there is this man running towards the group of girls and me. The girls start to walk away, but their facial expression scared me. They looked terrified and looked at me as if I was bothering them. The man walked up to me as I was walking to the taxi and told me that if I wasn't interested, then I could leave. I never got the names of the girls or thier ages, but it was easy to tell that they were not much older than me. Most of them were not from Paris, much less France and it was obvious from their darker complections. It was hard to tell under a street light, but they looked ghastly thin and smelled like it does when you walk through Saks on a saturday and every tourist in the world is sampling perfume. My dad explained to me the way back that the girls were probably not from Paris and the man that came up to us was their boss. His job was to keep business moving and I was stopping customers from picking up the girls. When I got back, I started doing some research on sex trafficking and I could not believe everything that I found. It was 10 times worse than I imagined. These girls are my age and even as young as my boyfriends youngest sister, and it just astonishes me that this happens. Its hard because I knew that I couldn't save the girls in the park and I think about them from time to time. I felt that I was talking to my friends back home, only these were girls forced to have sex with men day in and day out with little protection, if lucky. They didn't get much to eat and I hope to this day that the money I gave them didn't go to drugs. It's horrible to say, but if it did go to drugs, then I hope that the drugs helped them not feel the pain because what they are put through is torture and must be stopped.

International Idea- Citizen Participation in Government

I chose the countries Brazil,Cambodia,Columbia,Guam,Italy,Kuwait,Nigeria, and of course the US. I think that compared to other countries, the US is definitely has the highest rating for involving citizens in the decisions of their government but the voter turnout ratings shocked me. This only makes sense because this notion of voting and a democracy is what the US was founded on. Brazil was first in my search. It had the highest percentage of voters who turned out. The countries Kuwait, Italy, Guam, and Cambodia do not have any statistics meaning that their people cannot vote or did not turn out at all. I am surprised that Italy didn't have a percentage at all.

Living Democracy Blog Post

I have chosen my issue to be Human Trafficking. I think that even though it is more commonly practiced in Asia and Africa, there are girls that are being forced into it here. I think that awareness on sex trafficking could be increased. I noticed in Dallas, when the softball team was there, that in our hotel there was a sign. It read something along the lines of, "Human Trafficking is a crime, Please call the police if you have any suspicions". This was just a politically correct sign that summarized, "if you see any prostitutes, call this number, it’s illegal. I think that it is a very serious issue because it is children who are being most affected. Young girls and teenagers are being taken from their vacation spots and shipped halfway across the world before their parents even have time to report their abductions. The people running the kidnapping and shipping tell the girls who are disobedient, that there is a better life for them and the less educated girls who are poor believe them and go along willingly. If the girls don’t comply, they are physically grabbed and thrown into cars that take them to the place that they are shipped from. There are places, even in New Orleans, where sexual acts by young girls are encouraged and if there is anyone who thinks that prostitution of underage girls doesn't happen in New Orleans, they are crazy. Most people think that it can never happen to their families but more and more stories are popping up in the news and each of the stories carries the same common theme: young girl, moderately attractive, who was last seen in a public place and then vanished. The government has fairly accurate ideas of who is running these operations and they should try and stop this. In the long run, there are unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, rapes and murders, not to mention that it boosts the drug industry because all of the girls are forced to take drugs to be more willing to their customers. They are under the impression that they can earn their way outs of their imprisonment by working long days with very little breaks in between customers. These girls develop addictions such as sex addictions and drug addictions. They are fed very little food because the men prefer the girls to be small.
The government needs to step in and help these girls. There needs to be safe houses where these girls can go if they escape that will help them get back on their feet. The government should try and take down these men who run the operations in a way that can secure the girls a way to escape. The more people are educated about this issue the higher awareness will be and maybe we can slow down the line graph that charts the statistics of how many girls are taken a year.

Discrimination- Dont Ask Dont Tell Policy

The Washinton Post posed an article on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Under this idea, the military would not ask it's enlisted memebers if they were homosexuals or not. Under this idea, the military was discriminate against homosexuals but would not ask because they desperately needed the bodies. This article written by Craig Whitlock and Michael Shear which talks about senators trying to pass acts to help the gay men and their partners.

I think that this article is interesting becuase I feel personally, that people, regardless of sexual orientation, should not be discriminated against just because of personal preference.

State of The Union Address

I think that overall, the Democrats were the main ones supporting Obama, which obviously isn’t much of a surprise. I think that Obama’s ideas sound great, but he doesn’t present the reasonable plan to back them up. He talks about decreasing the deficit while decreasing taxes, but he never states how he is going to do it. Also he uses statements like the one where he mentioned that he didn’t increase income taxes for anyone. While this statement is true, he fails to mention that he just redesigned the tax tables for people. He also mentions how student loans will get paid off by the government after 20 years if the students pay 10 percent of their income every month. This sounds great to every student thinking about going to college, but the problem is that colleges put out a certain amount of money every year expecting to get most of it back from student loans. Essentially, they are spending money that they do not have, but are guaranteed to get reimbursed on. While this sounds great, if students do not pay back the full amount that they took out, then the colleges cannot supply their current students with money because the amount that they are supposed to receive back will not be paid back fully. The students trying to get into college will not be awarded with as many grants and scholarships because the colleges will need the funding to actually remain afloat. His plans for eradicating debt are in my opinion useless, because if you don’t have a plan to actually get rid of it, then you don’t just stand back and do nothing with it, instead; just as he suggested with the student loans, you just spread it around and wait for future generations to eventually pay it off.

Kennedy and Eisenhower speeches

Do these speeches show basic agreement or disagreement a bout the goals of national policy? Use specific examples from the speeches to illustrate your ideas.


"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society".

Eisenhower wanted to improve the arms that the united states had by becoming more technologically advanced and making the US stronger by increasing the amount of supplies we had.

JFK wanted to use mental tactics and well thought out moves before using weapons.
In this sentence he states that arms are necessary and we will have to eventually fight but the reason that we are fighting is also impoartant and it is good to be smart in the decisions that we make.

"Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself".

Eisenhower and Stevenson campaign ads

As I watched all of the Eisenhower campaign ads, the notion of the family man who was a brilliant and strong general is reinforced through every means possible. The ads portray a man who is quick but decisive and can make decisions that will be wise but also morally strong. With the Korean War being fought at this time, the people of the United States were looking for a leader that was familiar with war but would also bring the men who the constituents loved home, so that they could be with their family. The point that Eisenhower was trying to get across was that he had the knowledge and experience of battle and could bring a peaceful ending to the war. One of Eisenhower's ads has a black male asking him a question and Eisenhower has a response that is summarized to say that the American people are facing all kinds of problems and that life isn't as good as people lie about. By posing and answering this question, Eisenhower tries to show the people that he recognizes the problems and will not just look over them hoping that they will go away over time. With the cheerful chants of "Ike", I also noticed that this catchy song hooked the viewer and made it almost seem as if the viewer would be happy like the song if they voted for Ike.

For the first clip for Stevenson, the reader is drawn in by an attractive woman singing. This tactic was used to show women that other women had an interest in Stevenson and this add lured men into watching it because the woman has a low cut dress on. The image of a housewife saying that Stevenson would be good is reinforcing the notion of the wives at home helpfully suggesting to their husbands what would be good for them, just as all mothers do. With the seductive winks and nods and eye lash flickers, the woman's appearance is focused more on than the rhyming of the lines within the song.

The tactics of rhyming, attractive women, and television ads just show how technology and campaigning is evolving. These ads show us that in 1952, the world was becoming for technologically advanced and also more deceptive, since now they not only could deceive the audeince not just through the radio, but also visually. The use of attractive women singing and catchy rhyming songs helped to get the tunes stuck in someones head which having an image to go along with the tunes certainly helped also.